Friday, October 31, 2008

but without me you're only you....

--Earworms of the week.

So, there I was, making myself angry by reading the comments of the general public on the Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross thing over on the "Have Your Say" section of the BBC website. It seems that the villagers are out in force tonight with their torches and their pitchforks. The most recommended comment on the thread reads:

"....On a personal note, I find neither of them in the least bit funny and consider what they have done to an inoffensive man totally unforgivable. Such louses are they that they wouldn't have tried it with anyone big anyone enough to hit back. Remove the pair of them from the airwaves, the world will be a much better place. BURN THEM! BURN THEM! BURN THEM!" (or something).

Oh, reading it again has got me started again.... the world will be a better place without two comedians on the BBC? Why? Will it end world hunger and bring about peace to the middle east? Is this really such big news in the same week that a man is sent to prison in this country for breaking the spine of his 16 month-old daughter across his knee? Which story is the better indicator of the state of the nation, would you say?

Gah.

Anyway. Then I discovered this website, and all was well with the world again.

Yes, a site that only exists to take the piss out of the people who comment on the BBC's "Have Your Say" pages. I especially like the Twat-O-Tron, where you can generate your own outraged comments.

Mine is:

"is this what the bbc licenc tax gets spen on when will people realise that all parties except the bnp are selling britain to the french because theyre ruining britain the only solution is to speak english this is great britain lets show it

I was reading the other day that they've split up after guitarist, Dorian Cox, announced that he was very unlikely to play the guitar again after suffering a stroke. Bloody hell. That's a bit of a change from "musical differences". I doubt we've seen the last of celebrated beret wearer Kate Jackson though.... I hope not.

This is a very dangerous earworm to have, as we're only millimeters away from a Mick Hucknall disaster. Just to be absolutely clear: at no point has my internal jukebox slipped from the classic version of this song into the other. Right? Right. What a gift to advertisers though. It's not like they have to change terribly much about this song to plug the cold-soothing, sleep-inducing nighttime drug, is it?

I couldn't even begin to tell you anything about this band, or whether that song title is supposed to be some sort of addled version of "In the Garden of Eden"... what I do know is that I was familiar enough with the riff in the song to be able to recognise it as played on a bontempi organ, and to then spend the rest of the quiz wondering what the hell it was. I opted for The Doors in the end, but kept losing the tune to the apparently-very-similar "Sunshine of Your Love". I was relieved when the answer was revealed and I could safely say that I would never have got this question right in a million years.

Cash has featured here a lot over the years, both the Rick Rubin-era stuff and his older, golden period records. You don't really need me to be telling you that he's a genius, eh? I've no idea how this managed to plant itself in my head on Monday, but it's not as though I'm going to be filing a complaint.

I love this song, and I think it sprang to mind when our winning streak of 8 pub quiz wins in a row was finally ended on Wednesday night. We came second. By half a point. On a recount. It's hard to feel cheated, and as well as feeling a little bit relieved that we'd finally got that monkey off our backs, I was really very gratified by the sheer delight and relief displayed by the other team when they knew that they had finally beaten us... but.... next time, we FUCK THEM.

It was in the "Backwards TV themes" round at the quiz - a round that I am irredeemably hopeless at. I never really stood a chance with the "Thundercats" theme, but for some reason, the thought that this one could be Fraggle Rock actually crossed my mind. It was never tangible enough for me to suggest it, but somehow I still ended up feeling annoyed that we hadn't got the answer right. Grr. Great theme tune though. One of the best (even if it doesn't quite have the brilliant, unexpected guitar solo of the Thundercats theme).

It doesn't take a genius to see that this one might be linked to all of the oceans of publicity surrounding the release of "Quantum of Solace". I loved the Fleming short story of the same name, but given that Bond doesn't really feature in it at all, except as the person to whom the Governor of Nassau is telling a story about a relationship gone bad, I'm expecting that the plot of the film is likely to be different I like most of the Bond theme tunes, actually, although this is one of the less obvious. It's a corker though. I'm distinctly undecided about the Jack White effort, I have to say.

So there I was, playing six-a-side football, when all of a sudden a familiar sounding thumping riff plopped into my head. It took me 5 minutes to work out that it came from a song that I probably haven't heard at all in at least ten years.... but at least it's a good record. "Out of Nowhere" was the song that I listened to before I sat every single one of my GCSEs in 1990, but for me "Angel Dust" is the better album

I was at their NEC gig where the crowd ripped up the seat linings and rained them down onto the stage as they performed. It was a magical night. Good band too. I mentioned to a colleague this afternoon that I'd been earworming this all day, and he mentioned that sometimes, and equally inexplicably, he sometimes finds himself earworming "Spoonman". Another great song from about the same era. Nice.

Can you start sending your addresses to the email addy in my profile? Thanks.....

Right then.

I have to say, I'm very glad that this week is nearly over. One of the systems that I'm responsible for has been in a heap for most of the last 10 days. Sadly it's critical to the business, and I've had several thousand agitated stakeholders jumping up and down and shouting and things.

They tell me that it initially went down because of a rogue database connection, but...I prefer to blame Russell Brand (has it reached the point yet where my name is going on some kind of a list because I haven't complained?)